ABSTRACT
Many studies would argue that the diffusion of consumer products and the dissemination of scientific knowledge have encouraged greater homogeneity in the consumer markets of advanced industrialized countries. This chapter investigates the salience of environmental and health concerns in the European Union (EU) and US to understand why some products are defined as unnatural or unacceptable in the United States but not in the EU, and vice versa. It explains why tobacco caught the attention of "policy entrepreneurs" in the US but not in the EU and why transgenic food became a hot issue in Europe, but failed to incite the American public. The chapter identifies the essential factors that help account for the rise of anti-genetically modified organisms sentiments in the EU and anti-tobacco campaigns in the US. The anti-tobacco forces had cultural advantage over similar kinds of movements in Europe. American society is tolerant, for want of a better term, of state paternalism and public moralizing.
